1/29/2006
Karzai is backpedaling on ‘peace with terrorists’ so why aren’t Jack and his men FREE?
If you’re looking for pieces on Jack Idema and his team, please click on this link.
On January 6, an article from the AP talked about how the Taliban had laid down their arms to work with the new government, but Mullah Omar remained resolute to fight the infidel Americans.
In this article from Radio Free Afghanistan on January 10, they talk about Karzai extending an olive branch to Mullah Omar and how it was rejected.
Former Taliban Leader Calls For Jihad, Promises Stronger Attacks In Afghanistan
In a message commemorating the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca dated 9 January and read by neo-Taliban spokesman Mohammad Yusof, Mullah Mohammad Omar called on Muslims to continue their jihad against the United States, Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press reported. “Given that the greatest enemy of Islam, the U.S., has taken hostage all the material and spiritual wealth of the Islamic world today, armed jihad has become the duty of every Muslim,” Omar’s message stated. Labeling Muslim leaders allied with the United States “traitors,” Omar urged Muslim countries to react to them or face “victory for the foes of Islam.” According to the ousted leader of the Taliban regime, the United States has been forced by the resistance in Iraq to “search for an escape route” and the same fate “very soon” will become reality for the United States in Afghanistan. Omar also promised a stepping up of attacks by neo-Taliban militia in 2006 with “stronger” tactics. Afghan President Hamid Karzai on 8 January invited Omar to peace talks (see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 9 January 2006), which another neo-Taliban spokesman identified as Dr. Hanif rejected on 9 January in a telephone conversation with Pajhwak Afghan News. AT
But this article from January 16, shows Karzai is trying to make it appear as though he never extended peace talks to Mullah Omar.
Mullah Omar answerable to Afghan people: Karzai
Afghan President Hamid Karzai Monday clarified that he had never made an unconditional offer to Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban’s spiritual leader, to return to Afghanistan.
Speaking to reporters in his fortified presidential palace, Karzai said Mullah Omar should respond to the Afghan people for the catastrophe he caused in the country.
“I have not said that he can come to Afghanistan,” Karzai said. “We have said that Mullah Omar should come and respond to the people of Afghanistan.”
“He should answer why he faced the Afghan people with such a big catastrophe,” the president said.
“Why he burnt the houses of people. Why he burnt the gardens of the people. Why he destroyed the mosques. Why he deprived the Afghan people of education. Why he tried to face the country with difficulties and destruction and by whose order he did it.”
In late 2001, an international military coalition led by the US toppled the Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic regime, for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist network, blamed for the Sep 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington.
The whereabouts of Omar and bin Laden are not known, but more than 19,000 US-led troops are hunting the Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants, mainly in the southern and southeastern region of the war-torn country.
Both Omar and bin Laden as well as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the former Afghan prime minister, have declared a holy war against the presence of international troops in Afghanistan and all those supporting the central government in the country.
–DPA
(IANS)
So it would appear as though Karzai at least on the surface–is staking a claim to fight terrorism, Mullah Omar, Hekmatyar, Bin Laden, etc.
If that is the case, and it appears so…then why are Jack Idema and his men still being held in Afghanistan’s notorious Pulacharke prison?
It can no longer be claimed that the Afghans are extending an olive branch to Hekmatyar and Mullah Omar, and certainly, what Jack Idema and his terrorist hunting Afghans did back in 2004 was to foil a plot to murder members of the Northern Alliance including Yunous Qanooni and numerous others. Let’s take a look at the reason Jack Idema and his men were arrested to begin with.
Jack, working with our Northern Alliance allies, first captured a terrorist named Ghulamsaki, while getting off a bus (due to accurate intelligence gathering). This was the terrorist the FBI hadn’t made any progress capturing. Subsequently, Jack and his men captured 95% of the entire al-Qaida and Hezb-i-Islami terrorist operation cell. And this wasn’t a group of elderly men sipping chai. In four different operations and raids, they not only captured the terrorists, they obtained the actual explosives, detonators, and vehicles that were to be used in the plot to bomb Bagram and assassinate members of the Northern Alliance.
They were planning to assassinate the Afghan President, Minister of Defense, Minister of Education, two ambassadors, and the leaders of Massoud’s Jamiat Party. Had any of them been successful it would have resulted in certain civil war and the deaths of untold Afghan and American lives.
Ironically, and horribly, Jack and his men now find themselves imprisoned with terrorists, while the terrorists who were stopped briefly, have been set free. And we see evidence of this over and over again; 7 Taliban terrorists recently escaped from Pulacharke, merely by inking their hands and posing as visitors and walking out with them.
These terrorists, who were working directly for Osama bin Laden and Gulbideen Hekmatyar, both at one time on America’s Most Wanted list, claimed they were tortured and abused; claimed Jack and his men smashed their heads in bloody bags, cut off fingers, poured boiling water on them, hung them upside down and dipped them in boiling water, repeatedly burned them with cigarettes, beat them day and night, and refused to feed them.
But when the Afghan intelligence agency took custody of them, and two American FBI agents interviewed them, only a few days after all this heinous torture occurred, only one of the terrorists had any mark or injury whatsoever; Serajan’s “torture” wounds amounted to two small cuts on the front of both his ankles. The laughable abrasions were self-inflicted when Serajan attempted to break the plastic flex-cuffs securing his feet during the transport from the terrorists safe-house rented for him with money directly from Osama bin Laden, and later while he was sitting alone in an interrogation room.
Almost all of this was confirmed by the two FBI agents who interviewed Jack, his men, and the terrorists. But interestingly, that FBI report is now classified.
But to bring this home to Americans, think about this: Four fuel tankers driving into Bagram Air Base (fuel tankers are constantly daily arriving at Bagram) laden with gas and explosives as they passed through the gates. The explosives would never be discovered because the terrorists were using a combination of plastic explosives and incendiary explosives which American bomb dogs could not detect.
The result would have been flaming bodies of hundreds of American soldiers in a scene that would have dwarfed the Beirut Marine barracks bombing and brought back the vision of burning victims plunging to their deaths on 9/11.
President Bush said, in September 2001, that all Americans were now soldiers, in the war on terror. He called upon each of us to do whatever we could to stop terror and save American lives. Jack Idema, his men, and the heroic Northern Alliance mujhaideen have done precisely that–side by side–shoulder-to-shoulder.
For those who are making light of my respect and admiration for Jack Idema, let me paraphrase what Ben Stein said recently about the men and women who are fighting this war against terrorism. (With a tip o’ me tam to Euphoric Reality)
The most heroic, ethically courageous, morally resolute men and women in the world today are the Americans, British, and other forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. These brave individuals are fighting the most evil men and women currently on the world scene…You should go ahead and ask yourself what kind of sacrifices Jack and his men have made to fight this war on terror, and thank God that he was willing to make such a sacrifice for people who don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about him now. 9/11’s impact has faded with time, and leftists have made sure that we remember those victims as “little Eichmanns’ instead of victims of an outrageous act of war on our soil–a biproduct of this nazi ideology that would have us all killed.
Do I support men and women who are fighting Nazis who call themselves insurgents or Islamic militants? You bet I do. Do I support men and women who offer up their lives to fight the very same terrorists who killed three thousand totally guiltless Americans on 9/11? You bet. Do I support the troops who have more moral decency in their toes than I do or anyone I know does in our whole bodies? You better believe I do.
I support them, pray for them, am humbled just to be on the same planet with them. With every morning I wake up, every meal I eat, every walk I take in freedom, every night I sleep in peace, I ask God to look after these men and women who guard the ramparts of this blessed island of peace and decency called America. Without them, we would be nothing. Without them, Joel Stein and other anti-war demonstrators would have their heads sawed off on videotape. Saints in armor is what I call them and that is exactly and precisely what they are. They are God’s gifts to a wayward world.
These are just a few of the many reasons why Jack Idema and his men absolutely and unequivocally must be freed from Pulacharke prison, and why we must push for a Congressional investigation as to why this ever happened to them to begin with.
